by John Prebble
The soldiers were quartered three or five to a cottage, from Carnoch eastward to the loch below Aonach Eagach, where Sergeant Barber took the largest single party and lodged himself upon MacDonald of Achnacone, the senior tacksman of Glencoe. Glenlyon refused the offer of MacIain's house, saying that he would stay with MacDonald of Inverrigan at the bend of the glen. But John Lindsay was quartered in or about the chief's house, and Lundie close by. The others were placed at Brecklet, Laroch or Achtriachtan. In almost every house or cottage in the glen there were red coats and boar's-head bonnets. Glenlyon's choice of quarters is curious. His love of good living, and his vanity, would perhaps have persuaded him to take the best the glen could offer, and MacIain was well known for his liberal hospitality. But in that first hour the Campbell may have felt in no mood to stay in a house that was well stocked with domestic goods that had once been his and his wife's. He may have been uncertain, too, of how easy might be their relationship if he lived too close to the chief. It may even be that he did not trust the old man.
The days that followed were unusually mild for February, melting the snow on the floor of the valley and filling it with the music of singing water. Early in the mornings, the first paradiddle of Reveille beaten by a grenadier drummer rolled against the Cliff of the Feinn opposite Inverrigan, answered by another at Carnoch and a third at Achtriachtan, and the hurry-hurry call of the sergeants brought the soldiers out on to the flat ground by each township. They drilled until noon, scarlet and yellow on the black earth, the skirts of their coats swinging, and the butts of their muskets slapping against their thighs. The people of the glen grew accustomed to the crying of English voices. ‘Pikemen take heed… advance your pikes… to the front, charge your pikes!’ And the solemn, slow ritual of the musketeers, ‘Poise your fire-locks… shoulder your firelocks… Rest!’ And perhaps they smiled, and pitied the Campbells for poor kye who knew no better than to dress in red coats and to do what they were told by the English-speakers.
But some saw no humour in it. A hundred of them went one morning to Invercoe and asked MacIain to drive the strangers from the glen. He was angry with them. He said that the soldiers were the guests of Glencoe. They were Highland and they had broken bread with Clan Iain Abrach, therefore no harm would be done by them, and no offence should be given them. Some of the people still could not feel easy with Campbells in red coats for lodgers, but most of them accepted MacIain's reassurance. The soldiers had come under trust, and under trust they had been accepted by Alasdair MacDonald. Though a Highlander might shoot a man from the fork of a tree, or dirk him in the dark, hospitality given and taken was inviolable. When the strangeness of their presence had passed, the Argyll men were made welcome as friends. Although there were men among them who had lost a cow or a goat, a plaid or a pair of brogues, a cottage burned in the Atholl Raid, and others who had seen their kinsmen hanged or shipped to the plantations, equally there were MacDonalds whose kin had died by a Campbell rope on Doom Hill. There was blood between them, but in those twilight days they bridged it by a handclasp and by their mutual respect for the traditions of their race. Only the Lowland men, though they were treated with respect, were left outside the unnatural warmth of this friendship.
During the short afternoons the Campbells joined the MacDonalds in their games, wrestling, throwing the stone and tossing the caber. There was camanachd, the fierce game of shinty which was so called, said Martin Martin, because the players' legs were frequently broken by blows from the hooked sticks. Whichever team won, both got drunk on the whisky which customarily celebrated the victory. There was archery, for the Glencoe men were vainly proud of their skill with the bow. There were sword-dances in the bright cold air, and the notes of the pipes like thin wires strumming. At night, when the sergeants had mounted the watch, Campbells and MacDonalds gathered by the peat-fires in the cottages, dark tartan and red broadcloth lit by the flames of the resinous pine-knots which the Highlanders called fir-candles, or by smoking lamps of mutton-fat. They sang the songs of the glens, carefully chosen airs that would give no offence to a host or a guest. They told tales of Fingal, of the love which Fionn MacCumhail had for Grania, and the wisdom he got from the magic salmon he caught and cooked. They talked of hunting and the white hind of Rannoch, of wild boar and the last wolf to be killed. They got drunk and they bragged, and they stared at each other through the peat-smoke, their eyes red-rimmed and smiling. And so to another morning, another day, and another night of the same.
Every morning Glenlyon walked from Inverrigan's house to the home of his niece Sarah, and there took a cup of spirits with her husband Alasdair Og. His voice was bright, his tongue loose, and although Alasdair's nerves were on edge with distrust, he obeyed his father and made the Campbell welcome. Every night Glenlyon gambled. He played cards and backgammon with his host Inverrigan. He played with his officers and with MacIain's sons. He played until the last man left the table or fell unconscious beneath it. He returned to Inverrigan at dawn, when the sun was already pink on the snow-line, and the orderly drummer stood at the door, blowing on his fingers to make them supple.
Alasdair MacDonald tolerated the Campbell drunkard, and may even have felt sorry for him. He was relieved and grateful that Glenlyon made no issue of the old grievances between them, and he invited him to dine frequently at Carnoch in ‘the hospitable house of wine-cups and panelled walls’. Together they matched drink for drink, and listened to the piping of Big Henderson of the Chanters. MacIain had another guest, Murdoch Matheson,* a young bard of honourable descent, the admired composer of stirring songs and witty lampoons. He had been to Inveraray with a message from his master, the Mackenzie Earl of Seaforth, and he had stopped in Glencoe on his way home. In the glen of poets he was welcomed with respect by the old chief whom he later mourned as ‘a hero without flaw, without fear, unsurpassed in beauty or in eloquence.’
Miracle-working King of the Sun, who sits on the mercy seat, make peace with the children of that splendid and generous man. When he raised his banner, slender shafts, bright heather and pipes, sweet women beat their hands in lament for the keen-weaponed warriors in battle.
Owing them nothing but contempt, Matheson was less flattering to the Argyll officers whom he had joined at MacIain's table. He called them ‘uncouth savages… mulish louts… folk who puff out their cheeks as they sit on stools’.
On 4 February, three days after the Campbell soldiers arrived in Glencoe, John Hill reported that MacDonald of Glengarry had sworn the oath of allegiance, and had promised to surrender his castle by the twelfth of the month. There is no evidence that this news was sent to Glenlyon. Nor is there any reason to believe that he yet knew the real purpose of his presence in Glencoe. That he had been deliberately chosen by Hamilton and Duncanson there can be no doubt. Other company officers of Argyll's Regiment had strong reasons for hating MacIain and his people, any one of the Barbreck Campbells for example, or young MacAulay of Ardincaple. None, however, had suffered so bitterly at the hands of the Gallows Herd as Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, and none, presumably, could be so eager for revenge. But he was a loose-tongued, quarrelsome man, unmanageable in drink, and without caution or discretion. He could not be trusted with any plan for long, particularly one which Stair had insisted should be secret and sudden. It was still secret, and perhaps even Robert Duncan-son knew no more of it at this moment than what the Deputy-Governor thought necessary to tell him. A special duty… and more of it later… an officer of your command… one with no love for that thieving tribe…
Hamilton probably intended that the bloody extirpation of Clan Iain Abrach should take place within two or three days of Glenlyon's arrival in Glencoe. The bad weather which had stopped all troop movements had now lifted, and there was nothing to prevent the speedy march of other companies to Glenlyon's assistance. Duncanson would take the rest of his command eastward from Ballachulish, and Hamilton would block the pass to Rannoch with four hundred of Hills Regiment. To delay meant risking the worst of February's
blizzards. But there was a delay, it lasted for seven days and then for five more. John Hill was responsible. Although, as he bitterly admitted to Major Forbes, he had left the management of the affair to Hamilton and Duncan-son, his signature was necessary on the final order. He could not write it. His mind was in a cataleptic state, he was immobilized by shock and revulsion. Day by day he waited for a reply to the letter he had written to Stair on 14 January. He could not believe that there would still be a demand for blood, now that the chiefs were taking the oath and Lochaber was as quiet as the streets of Edinburgh. The tortured old man turned his back on the impatient Hamilton, and waited.
Stair's reply, written at Kensington Palace on 30 January, reached Fort William some time toward the end of the second week in February. Hill read it with sickening despair. ‘You cannot receive further directions… be as earnest in the matter as you can… be secret and sudden… be quick…’
He sat alone with the letter, and rationalized the doubts of his conscience. There was no escape from his duty except by the dishonour of refusal. He was old and he was poor. The Government was grievously in debt to him, and would be denied at his own expense. His daughters had none but him to support them. When his service was over he might reasonably hope for a customary knighthood, even a small pension in addition to his half-pay. The order would not be his, he was the instrument of Their Majesties and he had sworn upon his honour to serve them. ‘I will be a true, faithful and obedient soldier, in every way performing my best endeavours for Their Majesties' service, obeying all orders and submitting to all such rules and articles of war as are, or shall be established by Their Majesties. So help me God!’ He was a human man, however, and his unhappy indecision was not due to conflict of conscience alone. He was a human man, with vanity and self-respect. Twice in recent months both had been bitterly offended, once by Breadalbane, and then again by James Hamilton's insulting appointment. He knew that his Deputy-Governor would eventually order the slaughter of the MacDonalds, without his agreement if necessary, confident of the protection of the Master of Stair. After so many empty years, so brief a time of authority, Hill could not endure that indignity. Three years later he told the King's Commissioners of Enquiry that he had signed the order because ‘I was jealous of my own authority and concerned in honour that the orders should have been sent immediately to my lieutenant-colonel, and in order that nothing might be done without me’. Unable to resolve the great problem of personal responsibility, he fretted instead over a small vanity, understandable yet terrible in its paradox. Unable to prevent a dishonouring act, he persuaded himself that his honour would be preserved by becoming a party to it.
Yet he had not entirely convinced himself. The wording of the order he wrote, on the afternoon of Friday, 12 February, was a weak and sad evasion. He relied too much on the Scriptures for the thought of Pilate not to have passed through his mind.
To Lieut. Col. Ja. Hamilton,
Sir,
You are with four hundred of my regiment, and the four hundred of my Lord Argyll's regiment, under the command of Major Duncanson, to march straight to Glencoe, and there put in due execution the orders you have received from the Commander-in-Chief. Given under my hand at Fort William, the 12th February, 1692.
JO. HILL
Hamilton was ready. Seven companies of Hill's Regiment were put under orders for a forced march before midnight, and their grenadier drums were beating as he wrote a hasty letter to Duncanson. The Argyll man was now quartered on the north side of the Ballachulish ferry, with the remaining five companies of the command he had brought up from Inveraray. It is plain from Hamilton's letter that Duncanson had been taken into the Deputy-Governor's full confidence some days before, and knew all that was planned. Fourteen companies of Foot, more than nine hundred officers, non-commissioned officers and men, were to destroy the MacDonalds at dawn.
For Their Majesties' Service. For Major Robert Duncanson of the Earl of Argyll's Regiment.
Fort William, 12 February 1692
Sir,
Pursuant to the Commander-in-Chief and my Colonel's orders to me for putting in execution the service against the rebels of Glencoe, wherein you with that party of the Earl of Argyll's Regiment now under your command are to be concerned. You are therefore to order your affairs so that you be at the several posts assigned to you by seven of the clock to-morrow morning, being Saturday, and fall in action with them, at which time I will endeavour to be with the party from this place at the post appointed them. It will be necessary the avenues minded by Lieutenant Campbell,* on the south side, be secured, that the old fox and none of his cubs get away. The orders are that none be spared, nor the government troubled with prisoners, which is all I have to say to you till then. Sir, your humble servant.
JAMES HAMILTON
Please to order a guard to secure the ferry and the boats there; and the boats must be all on this side of the ferry after your men are over.
Toward dusk this order reached Duncanson's camp at Ballachulish. It had now become very cold, and all afternoon the sky had been heavy and black with the threat of snow. A wind was rising, and the waters of Loch Leven moved restlessly. Duncanson gave orders for a boat-party to make ready. Ferrying three hundred men across to the Appin side would be a long and dangerous business, and the tide-race at the narrows of Ballachulish was treacherous enough in daylight. He wrote an order to Robert Campbell of Glenlyon. The man who carried it was probably Thomas Drummond, for he was at Inverrigan when the work began some hours later, and it is natural that he would wish to be with his grenadiers. Like Hamilton, he is a shadowy figure, and appears twice only in the story – at Barcaldine Castle in the New Year, and at dawn in Glencoe on Saturday, 13 February. On each occasion he is seen to be a hard man and without compassion. As a captain of the grenadier company he was senior to Glenlyon, but there was no suggestion that he take command when he arrived at Inverrigan. Undoubtedly he knew the contents of the order he carried from Ballachulish.
For His Majesty's Service, to Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon.
Sir,
You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the MacDonalds of Glencoe, and to put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the old fox and his sons do upon no account escape your hands. You are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to put in execution at five of the clock precisely; and by that time, or very shortly after it, I'll strive to be at you with a stronger party. If I do not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the King's special command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cut off root and branch. See that this be put in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be dealt with as one not true to King nor Government, nor a man fit to carry Commission in the King's service. Expecting you will not fail in the fulfilling hereof, as you love yourself, I subscribe these with my hand at Ballachulish, Feb 12, 1692.
ROBERT DUNCANSON
It is not an order that would have been written to a man who had been given some prior warning of what he was to do, and who had declared himself in agreement. It is heavy with threat, of the loss of his commission, of extreme punishment under the articles of war. Expecting you will not fail… as you love yourself. The pitiable affairs of this pathetic bankrupt were no secret, and Duncanson could be certain that he would not sacrifice himself on a point of honour, and that for a people who were principally responsible for the ruin of himself and his family. The order and the threat are plain, but there is something in the letter which is not, and which betrays Duncanson's own instinct for self-preservation.
This you are to put in execution at five of the clock precisely…. Five o'clock? Hamilton's letter, which Duncanson had before him as he wrote, ordered him to march his companies to the posts assigned them by seven o'clock, and this included Glenlyon's move to close the passes to the south. Yet Duncanson told Robert Campbell that he would be in Glencoe at five, ‘or very shortly after
it’. It was not a mistake, unlikely though that would have been, for he repeated it. If I do not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. Why should he think he might not get there by five, if that were his intention? Ballachulish is only three miles from Invercoe, and he had all night to prepare against the bad weather coming. It must be concluded that he did not intend to be there at five, or even ‘very shortly after’. His orders from Hamilton plainly told him to march his men to Glencoe and to ‘fall in action with the rebels’, and there was no suggestion that the work should be done by Glenlyon's command alone. But on his own authority,* Duncanson ordered Glenlyon to begin the killing two hours before the twelve companies of Argyll's and Hill's Regiments were due to arrive in the glen. By seven o'clock the slaughter should be over.
